Rumour Mongering: Reds Beat Arsenal and Man City to Porto Youngster

For most Liverpool fans, now matter what happens in the league and Europe over the next few weeks, the focus this offseason will be on major new signings, the kind of players who can improve squad depth by competing for starting minutes with the team’s current stars.

Potential big money signings like Nabil Fekir and Jorginho and Ruben Neves will be the names fuelling transfer rumours. But there will also, amongst the big money stars and as is the case each year, be a few youth and fringe players brought in with an eye to the future.

According to The Guardian, the club could kick things off when the transfer window opens with one such player, Porto 19-year-old centre half Diogo Leite. Doing so would likely require Liverpool to trigger his €15M release clause, something multiple clubs are considering.

In the Portuguese press, Arsenal and Manchester City had previously been the teams most often linked with Leite, who is a regular with the Porto B reserve side but hasn’t yet made a senior appearance. However, the English paper believe Liverpool are now frontrunners.

If Liverpool can push through a deal by convincing the player to make the switch to Anfield—based in part on Jürgen Klopp’s reputation for developing young talent—he would be loaned back out immediately in order to get first team minutes.